"Sunday" last Tuesday

My only exposure to Sunday in the Park… before last night was the Mandy/Bernadette video and CD. Now I loves me some crazy, overindulgent Mandy and squeaky, not-too-subtle Bernie, but watching last night’s revival clearly supports the fact that Sunday can exist thrillingly outside of the original, brilliant Lapine staging and concept. Companies rarely revive Sunday due to the intrinsic difficulty in staging the “painting come to life” aspect of it. Sam Buntrock has used modern projection technology to finally bring a fresh, new look to Sunday. I don’t want to spoil the effects for anyone, but the audience audibly gasped at several key moments - notably the opening “white, a blank page or canvas” moment, the dog scene and the transitions in the last 10 minutes of the second act.

As for performances, I have to say I prefer the current British performers to Mandy/Bernie. Daniel Evans as George is a much more nuanced actor and not given to the “look ma, I’m acting” approach that Patinkin seems to embrace. It was also refreshing to see different characterizations for the Georges in each act. Jenna Russell’s Dot is a bit more grown-up than Bernie’s (in a good way) - more a youthful free spirit as compared to Bernie’s sometimes petulant child. I feel she found moments in the text and lyrics that didn’t even register for me when watching Bernie. Vocally, Evans and Russell are both wonderful, granted they can’t touch Mandy or Bernie, but I don’t feel vocals were compromised for the sake of finding better actors.

The “not-so-good” - I don’t think "Putting It Together" was improved by the projection technique and I think the original cut-out concept is much more successful. There was also some random reverb added to some of the singing. Overall, the balance in the group numbers was so homogenized that you couldn’t tell who was singing onstage - most evident in Act II Opening. Chorus also sounded a bit thin on "Sunday", not bad, just not full.

My biggest complaint - please God restore the French horn! The "Sunday" theme on a saxophone just doesn’t cut it! Otherwise, the reduced orchestrations didn’t really bother me. And though I can’t explain why, I started tearing up as soon as the accompanying chords to "Sunday" started playing in both acts.

This is a definite must-see since a Broadway revival of Sunday will likely not happen again anytime soon. They just don't write 'em like this anymore.